Manchester City win to go 15 points clear as Eriksen stuns United

City took a tighter grip on the race for the Premier League title on Thursday (AEST), defeating bottom club West Bromwich Albion 3-0, while two of their rivals slumped to defeats.

Another West Brom winger, James McClean, had earlier been booked for attempting to career through Kevin De Bruyne with a similarly reckless lunge that the City midfielder managed to ride en route to scoring his team's second goal.

Manchester City have won 15 of their last 16 Premier League encounters with West Brom (D1), including winning the last 12 in a row.Southampton have collected one point in their last six Premier League visits to the Etihad Stadium (W0 D1 L5), doing so in their 1-1 draw there last season.

City controlled the flow of play from the opening whistle and made their pressure tell in the 19 minute following some great interplay on the edge of the box which concluded with Fernandinho latching onto a ideal pass and firing an excellent low shot into the net, 1-0.

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola sung the praises of new £57m signing Aymeric Laporte after he helped keep a clean sheet.

With United losing to Spurs, the Blues have restored a 15-point lead at the top of the Premier League.

At Wembley, numerous EPL record crowd of 81,978 hadn't taken their seats when Spurs took the lead with Christian Eriksen's goal in the first minute.

Christian Eriksen scored the quickest goal in Premier League history after only 11 seconds to make it 1-0, before Phil Jones put the ball past David De Gea.

The first half ended 1-0 in favour of City.

"We have to accept it's a bad result and understand that we have to fight this season", Conte told the BBC.

The last night of the transfer window provided a fascinating backdrop to the midweek fixture list with Chelsea's final-day signing Olivier Giroud doubtless shocked at Stamford Bridge to see the champions suffer a remarkable 3-0 loss to Bournemouth.